Operational excellence is now a liability. The same lean, risk-averse culture that drove manufacturing success is now suffocating transformation. While 78% of manufacturers invest in digital and AI initiatives, fewer than 20% of digital transformation attempts succeed.  Because they treat innovation like just another operational process

True transformation requires a dual mindset: operational rigor in the core and bold experimentation at the edge. Industrial leaders must build innovation capabilities that function like R&D—structured, resourced, and insulated from business-as-usual constraints.

“We went from zero tangible ideas to $25M in orders within a year.”

– VP R&D at Advanced Flow Solutions

“With ambitious goals to quadruple our business by 2035, we needed strategic alignment fast.”

– Global Director, Market Strategy at BAC

“We were trying to create a new program…”

– VP Digital Strategy and Governance at Sanofi

“Our CEO immediately adopted and acted on the recommendations.”

– Sr Director, Program Mgmt, Oxford Immunotec

“There was no script for the work.”

– Sr Director, Medtronic

Legacy curriculum models can’t keep up with today’s classrooms. With 74% of districts struggling to fill teaching positions and 30% of students chronically absent, traditional product development can’t respond fast enough. Most education companies still treat each new challenge, from expanding into middle school algebra to navigating “complex and contradictory” standards, as a one-off crisis instead of building adaptive capacity.

The winners in education will be those that treat uncertainty as a repeatable skill. By equipping teams with systematic frameworks for greenfield development, EdTech and curriculum providers can confidently tackle unfamiliar territory and build sustainable innovation engines.

“Robyn’s support enabled our teams to succeed independently”

– VP Creative at Curriculum Associates

“We now have ideas we can act on…and tools to scale what we learned”

– Director of Product at Teachers Pay Teachers

“Our work together changes how we engage our citizen donors”

– Founder and former CEO of DonorsChoose.org

Challenger brands are overtaking legacy players—not by luck, but by design. Challenger brands in sportswear are projected to surpass industry giants like Nike and Adidas in profits, while 39% of fashion executives expect industry conditions to worsen (McKinsey, 2024). Meanwhile, incumbents remain stuck in scattered innovation efforts without clear portfolio visibility.

Industry leaders must develop and pursue structured innovation portfolios to ensure future flexibility and drive a competitive advantage. Winning requires more than scattered product bets.  It demands focused, business-model-disrupting innovation with C-suite visibility and strategic protection.

Create an Accelerator to launch 4 new business models at Sport Co

“The work Robyn did with us was instrumental…and allowed us to implement key capabilities”

– General Manager at Nike

“We are interacting with our customers on a deeper level than we imagined”

– Customer Insights at LovePop

Rising costs and labor shortages are squeezing out innovation. With 82% of food companies actively hiring to fill critical roles and 56% citing operational costs and maintaining profitability as their top concern, most teams are too overwhelmed to pursue high-potential opportunities like GLP-1-friendly nutrition or Food-as-Medicine markets.

Innovation systems must be built to operate in the real world, not ideal conditions. Food companies need repeatable processes for consumer insight development and rapid product positioning that survive the day-to-day operational turbulence that often derails breakthrough ideas.

Create and launch two new retail formats at Grocery Co

“Our first project is projected to add $6 million to the bottom line!”

– Director of Marketing Innovation at Maple Leaf Foods

In a converging media landscape, silos kill growth. Media convergence has created an ecosystem where cable operators, streamers, content creators, and hardware OEMs must become strategic partners, yet leaders across these companies still operate with siloed mindsets that prevent the cross-industry collaboration required for innovation.

Success depends on leaders who can think and act across industry boundaries. Media companies must invest in building collaborative, ecosystem-savvy leadership that thrives in a world where today’s competitor could be tomorrow’s most valuable partner.

Establish an innovation capability to transform the Cable Industry

“In less than a year, we created and ran (multiple times!) a program that has become the industry gold standard”

– VP, Intrapreneurship Academy at The Cable Center